Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Incomprehensible




                The definition of incomprehensible is something that cannot be understood or comprehended. God is incomprehensible. He is far different from us. The definition of Holy means to be different, set apart, or completely unlike anything else. God is unlike us in any way, shape, or form because He is holy and we cannot understand what is holy.

                If we look at imaginary creatures, you will always see something that you can identify. Their is always going to be something familiar because no one can create something out of pure nothing. This is not a challenge to see if you have a great imagination. What I am saying is that anything that we can imagine has some familiar root to something that we know or can comprehend. A vampire is a human mixed with a bat, Wolverine from X-men is just human with metal elements added in and some animal instincts. Zeus from Greek mythology is human like, but with super powers. Everything that has been imagined is either a root understood thing that was twisted or combined with other things to create something new. The imagination is powerful, but the mind cannot comprehend something it has never seen and cannot understand.

                What we cannot understand and do not know is basically the unknown. How do we understand the unknown? By using what we know to understand it. When in my Early American English class, I read many diary logs and letters written by the Puritans and Quakers. Whenever they spoke of the Native Americans and something that they had, they used words like "like" or "similar to" to give off the message. Because they were unfamiliar to the Native American's ways, they related what they saw to what they knew. That is what humanity has always done. When we do not understand something, we fall back on our own understanding to relate things. Unlike God, the Puritans and Quakers were able to understand the things of the Native Americans after time because they were able to learn how to comprehend one another. They were both human and in the same world. God, on the other hand, is far above us and we cannot truly or fully comprehend Him ever.

                God has given us tools and bits of information to begin to understand who He is. We will never be able to understand Him fully here on Earth, but we have enough to satisfy us if we look carefully at what He has said. He is above our nature. He is unlike anything in the world. Yes, man was made in the likeness of God; but that does not mean that we are miniature versions of God. We were not make in the exact likeness of God, and to claim so would be total disrespect to God. We are able to be tempted, God is not. He can be everywhere, we cannot be. He has all power, we are dependent on Him.

                The thing that makes Him different than everyone and everything else is that He is in a category all of His own. He is the creator and we are the created. All we know are created things. Naturally, we desire to understand, and that is how we can disrespect God, by bringing Him down to a "created" level. We ask, "where did God come from," which is fine to ask because we should desire to know about God; but when we say that something has created God, we insult Him and attack His name and His self-sufficiency. When we try to understand God as a created creature, we will ultimately fail. We must realize that God is the creator and not the creation.

                The cool thing about God is that we cannot comprehend Him. He is far beyond any image that we can imagine or any words that we can describe Him with. He is far beyond us. Some may say, "well we know the attributes of God." Yes, we know some, but He is far beyond those simple attributes. He is different than us, and is not just limited to words and titles. He is God alone. He is in a different category in Himself.

                In Ezekiel 1:1-28, when Ezekiel had a vision about seeing Heaven, He could not describe what He say. He had to fall back on the words of the created. He related everything to "likeness" or "the appearance of" for everything because what he saw was wholly different and unlike anything that he had ever experienced before. We must realize that we know nothing about who God truly is. We  know human comprehension of Him, but we cannot limit Him. He is far beyond us and we must allow that the be the way we see Him. If we were to limit Him or bring Him down to our level, it would be total blasphemy. We must allow Him to escape our imagination and our understanding because He is far beyond us. We can never understand Him until we care face to face with Him.


                                                                                                                                          -D

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